This study combines quantitative and ethnographic methods to analyze middle-school students' uses and understandings of microcomputers and videotex. As an experiment in teaching library research skills, 27 eighth graders were assigned to search an online encyclopedia in preparation for writing a science theme. The students' operational practices…

Citing increased attention now focused on networking in organizational contexts, this paper addresses two networking questions related to an organization's strategic purpose: how the organization's formal and informal networking channels are connected, and how they are managed and maintained. Thought processing is defined as a networking system…

This "fastback" outlines the steps to take in computerizing school administration. After an introduction that lists the potential benefits of microcomputers in administrative offices, the booklet begins by delineating a three-step process for establishing an administrative computer system: (1) creating a district-level committee of administrators,…

This paper describes a study that was undertaken at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to compare the databases selected by 75 inexperienced student online searchers aided by an existing gateway system--INFOMASTER, a version of EASYNET--with databases selected manually by four experienced searchers who were reference librarians from…

Initiated nine years ago by the University of Calgary Faculty of Education Computer Applications Unit in cooperation with the nearby Vocational and Rehabilitation Research Institute (VRRI), this project uses computer assisted instruction (CAI) to teach social and vocational skills to developmentally handicapped young adults, many of whom also have…

This volume describes the development and implementation of a two-way interactive cable television communication system and its effectiveness in urban administration. The full report is contained in Volume II (see related document), and the computer program documentation is in Volume III, Michigan State University-Rockford Two-Way Cable Project:…

This 4-year project located in Rockford, Illinois, tested the minicomputer-controlled interactive instruction by two-way cable against more traditional learning situations during a 12-lesson course in prefire planning administered to the city's fire department. This volume describing the development and implementation of the cable television…

The rapid growth of the need for technical translations in recent years has led specialists to utilize computer technology to improve the efficiency and quality of translation. The two approaches considered were automatic translation and terminology banks. Since the results of fully automatic translation were considered unsatisfactory by various…

Science education can be enhanced by facilitating student interactive access to scientific data bases. The main objective of the Science and Technology Information Transfer for Education (STITE) project was to study man-machine mechanisms for improving the transfer of science information from its present repositories into science learning systems,…

Guidelines for basic sampling and weighting procedures for Massachusetts' Management and Information System for Occupational Education (MISOE) are discussed, illustrating solutions relevant for systems development. Disproportionate, stratified random sampling within and across MISOE subsystems will be carried out, with a hierarchical…

This report describes design techniques, areas of effective application, and research directions in educational simulations. The five chapters contain (1) a review of recent literature; (2) an overview of the field of simulation including definitions and some of the rationales for using simulation in instruction; (3) an outline of the design…

The project objective has been to determine what creative thought processes can best take advantage of new technology in computer hardware and software. The plan has been to acquire or develop on-line computer systems of significant mathematical power, and to explore their use in vivo in teaching and research situations. The main product of…

A computer-based system--the Educational Assembly System for Student Executed Educational Design (EASSEED)--is used to generate individualized curricula for students with varying needs and goals. It combines advances in management and computer technology to define the processes of curriculum development and thus moves toward an explicit…

An overview is provided of the Management Information System for Occupational Education (MISOE). MISOE is described as an interactive, computerized information system designed to be prototypical for the statewide management of education and to help managers at all levels better understand, through numerical analysis of past experience, the causal…

The best way to introduce computers into the instructional program of the small community college is to start with an inexpensive interactive system devoted primarily to campus instructional needs and financed by the college itself. This runs counter to the predominant idea that the optimum procedure is to begin with remote terminals connected to…